Protect the briefcase
by cmort
Summary: Awake, and discover that the world around you is not under your control. You can fight or you can survive. When one man chooses to sneak, things get a bit more complicated. Only one man can uncover the truth. and only one chain smoking lady can stop him.
1. Chapter 1

Protect the briefcase! Protect the briefcase!

"Incoming!"

"WAHHHHHH!"

"Hey it's still here."

"Ahem. Gentlemen."

Yes I remember that day well. The day the red spy entered the base and tried to steal the documents. I remember his precision, his speed and his stealth, something quite marvellous to behold. I remember the look on my colleagues faces as I laid the body of the Sniper down by my feet. I remember the look of surprise on my face as the Soldier blew my head off. This last part is troubling. No doubt I was shot through the head, probably through some erroneous idea that a Spy would hide as a Spy. But the worrying thing is that I can remember every last detail. No part of my memory has been thrown to the wall, as my brains had been. No, they stay with me perfectly accurate and completely complete. I'm shifting through some reports of head injuries on my desk. And every single one of them says that head injuries are the main cause of memory loss, though one does also say that alcohol can cause memory loss. But the Demo man shows no signs of memory loss, apart from where he goes every night when he's on the gin. There is no reason that I should retain any memory, much less my life, after such an injury. This has begun to trouble me quite a bit, so in the spirit of this, I have decided to undertake a private mission. One that will hopefully yield some answers to my miraculous recovery. If I'm right, this should take me only a few days to complete. And If I'm wrong, it'll take only a few minutes before I wake up in my bed again, with the base under some kind of siege.

If anyone finds this, and if I haven't returned by the time you finish this page, you have only moments before I kill you.

-The Spy, Esquire.


	2. A man and his Scout

No one can ever know what I do today. No one can ever see me leave, or see me enter. I'm the alpha and omega. I bring the beginning and the end. I'm a silent shadow, a devious demon. And I will not stop until— A blinding light drowns my eyes in its florescent evil. "I'll never talk you bastards! You'll have to kill me. You'll have to—have to…"

"Er, Spy. Why are you hiding in my sock draw?"

"Go away Scout. I'm trying to get out of the base undetected."

"Well you know we have a door right? I mean, we got like fifty of them. It's not very good for, you know security. But for getting out of buildings they're the top."

I think about trying to seduce him. But I realise that I left my garrotting negligée in my other shoes. Just another day in the life of a corporate espionage.

Humiliated, I clamber out of his sock draw and stand over him, ready for interrogation. "So, I suppose you would love to know why I was hiding in your sock draw, yes? Well I'm not going to say. I have nothing to announce. Here is my passport; I think you'll find it's all in order."

I hand over a fake passport, a rather good picture of me with a fake beard, and a hook for a hand. "Can I get into my sock draw now? Or do you need it for something?" He's a crafty one all right. He knows that the passport is fake. My cover has been blown. But for the moment I'll ride this out, maybe turn the tables on him. "Yes you can use your sock draw, Scout. But tell me, you didn't happen to notice anything unusual about all this?" He stares at me blankly, his eye twitches and his mouth droops. I take my leave, as clearly my clever ruse has befuddled him.

"Man, that Spy is weird."


	3. The Night Spy

The night Spy.

"Hey, Hevy."

"Da?"

"Can you see anything? 'Cause I'm drawing nothing here."

Hevy peered over at the Soldier, curious as to what nothing looked like on paper.

"No," he said in his thick Russian accent, "Hevy cannot see anything in distance." Soldier nodded.

"Alright, wait here for me," He said. Dragging his launcher into the firing position, he prepared to make the dash for the relative safety of the blue base. Leaping out from the cover, he found himself under fire almost immediately. Bullets zipped past him and thudded into the ground next to his feet. Seeing no time to take more cover, he ran as fast as his little Soldier boots would take him, narrowly dodging the next barrage of enemy fire that peppered where he had once stood. Dodging left and right as fast as he could, he zigzagged through the minefield, and hunched himself to present a smaller target, though how looking at the ground was supposed to help him I'll never know. Launching the last couple of metres, and slamming face first into the garage door, he managed to tuck himself away into blue base, away from all those nasty men. "Heeeeooooow! That was one turkey shooting spree! Too bad the bastards can't aim," he said, pulling a shard of metal from his helmet, "He he. I wonder how Hevys doing."

How Hevy was doing:

"Die вы Матери Лохи! Тяжелые это альфа и омега! Я приношу гибели и бесчестье среди ваших семей! Теперь наслаждаться вашей гибели! Хахаха! После того как я уничтожил вашу тщедушный шипами, я съем бутерброд! Интересно, как шпион делает?

Как Spy делал…Sorry. How Spy was doing:

At last, I have found a way to escape from this wretched base. Soon I will be on my way, and then out of sight. Long live the blues, and long live me! This is Spy, reporting in the journal for the last time. Aidios my friends. Long may you prosper.

Things were going well. (Feel free to Google translate this, I had a lot of fun writing English in Russian and then re-translating it.)


	4. The great escape

The great escape.

Mess hall: two-thirty AM.

Breakfast: Sandvich

Drink: Sandvich

"Mm, Sandvich taste good."

"It sure does, Hevy."

"Maybe we get some more?" Scout looked at Hevy, who seemed to be positively glowing today.

"Hey buddy, have you been talking to the medic recently?"

"No. Why you ask?" Hevy said, as another round bounced off his skull.

"No reason. It's just that the red really suits you."

"You think so? Hevy worried it show enemy where we are."

"Nah, I think they would see you anyway." Hevy's lips curled into a wide grin.

"You think Hevy is noticeable?"

"Er, yeah."

"Well dat is good. What do you think blu team is up to know?" Scout cocked an eyebrow and peered around the bomb. "Looks like they're getting ready for another rush."

"Da, that is good. Now we kill, yes?"

"Urm…" Scout said, moving quickly into cover. "No, this time I think we RUN!"

Inside the base.

"Can you hear something?"

"Probably just the sound of my liver cry'en forra drink."

"Amen brother."

Outside the base.

"RUN! RUN, RUN, RUN!"

"HEVY IS RUNNING!" Bullets and grenades bounced around the two as they fled the bomb, behind them, a large assortment of blu team were coming after them.

"DUCK!"

"I AM DUCKING!"

"WELL IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YOU'RE!" Scout was zigzagging everywhere, whilst Hevy was taking a much more methodical approach to his evasive manoeuvres. "Looks like this is the end!"

The end.

Now that our defences are lowered, I can finally sneak out. Time for this Spy to fly. Swapping out his usual suit for something less conspicuous, Spy made his way into the hallway and started to run. If I have timed this right, I should be able to avoid all my colleagues and their boring chit-chat. Moving stealthily, he made his way outside. From here I can make my GREAT ESCAPE. Humming a little tune to himself, he uncovered a hole that Hevy had made earlier looking for a bone. Throwing the bone, and the still warm pyro, over his shoulder, Spy clambered into the hole and begun his escape. Meanwhile in the mess hall, pyro was wondering why he had yet to be mentioned in this story. Hey Pyro!

"Muhmf," he said, waving his hands at something he could not see. Meanwhile:

Spy was having some trouble.

"Dis Armani suit was not designed to be covered in shit!" Not a big problem by any means, unless it was Hevys. Those sandvichs will clog you up.

So it was with great trepidation, and a faint smell, that spy pulled himself out of the hole, a man who could pull himself through a meter of crap and come out clean on the other side, he was not.

So, smelling faintly of dog biscuits, Spy set off on his adventure, confidant that the smell would wear off eventually.


	5. The Unnamed Document

The unnamed document.

I have made my way across the perilous tundra, ice cream van. Marched across the scalding deserts, hot today, hmmm? And then I made my way across the tundra again! Damn van must have thought I was a child or something. That soon stopped after I took off my child disguise, for ages six to fourteen. And then I visited the air temple from avatar... seriously. On my pursuit of the truth I have been attacked by unknown assailants at all times. I have to be constantly on my guard, or else I will suffer the same fate as the ice-cream man. Bullet through the head and five kids to feed. Not so funny now, eh? Anyway, I have found myself in a small Tuscany village and have disguised myself as a medic, no one ever thinks of the medic! People are staring. Perhaps I should not do all my soliloquys out loud. I have been searching all over the world for this mysterious 'woman' that I have heard so much about. She is an enigmatic figure that disappears in a veil of smoke whenever I draw near. I am sure she is the answer to my questions. And I am dogged in my pursuit of her. But she also pursues me! So it's kind of like a dog chasing its own arse, if that arse smoked and the dog was a devishly handsome spy. Though I'm sure she would say something different. "What are you doing?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're supposed to be gutting the fish you lazy bastard!"

"I think there has been some kind of mistake. Here, let me rectify it." I act quickly and surge forward with a deadly intent matched only by a knife in the hands of a spy. Grabbing him I throw him onto the table where we gut the fish and, in some kind of automatic reflex, I kissed him. "Quiet Moneypenny," I crooned. "We are alone now." Before I can act further, or shock him into a coma, I am pulled back by some very large men. One might have even been an elephant, had there been such a thing in Tuscany. "Hello Mr. Spy. The lady is expecting you."

"I'm sure," I said, grabbing a cigarette from my jacket pocket and popping it into my mouth. "But I bet she wasn't expecting this!..." Two shots, five dead men. That's how a Spy rolls. And roll I did, for I had not noticed the twenty other mankillers behind me, in the bell tower and racing across the hills just out of sight, respectively. Bullets sent shattered shards of seramic (ceramic, love alliteration.) ground flying all around me. They forced me to weave between the market stalls like some kind of rat. But I was a spy, I knew how to act like a rat. Rolling under one of the stalls, and narrowly avoiding a line of bullets, I formed a plan. Reaching above myself, I grabbed several items off the stall and set to work…

"Where do you think he has gone?"

"Who?"

"The spy!"

"Oh, I thought you meant someone else."

"So where do you think he has gone?"

"Juste derrière vous."

Explaining stuff bit. Yonks' later, in Mongolia.

Using the items I took from the stall, a rope and a grappling hook, I was able to create a crude form of mace that I used to kill the rest of the mankillers with.

"How did you climb into the bell tower to kill those other two?" I laughed.

"Simple, my dear Khan. I used the guts as a makeshift rope and climbed up!" We both laughed hard that night. And as the moon rose over the frosty plains of Mongolia and the stars spread into the infinite, I couldn't help but chuckle thinking about the look of absolute, white faced, frozen in fear, terror on the two men's faces. Just looking at them as they swung gently on my scimitar gave me the feeling that more was to come. I would be ready.

au revoir, mes chers amis. I will forge my way ahead and confront the smoking lady alone, at least for a while. If you do not hear from me soon, it's because I am standing right behind you.

Cheers.

Mr. The spy, esquire.


	6. Tarantino

Tarantino...

Imagine the metallic thump of a type writer as you read every word of this story. Trust me, it feels good.

In a darkened room in the north of London two men sit either side of a long oak table. Both wear slick suits and custom watches. One is a tall man wearing a trilby hat, he is wearing a gold watch. The other wears a mask, he is wearing a silver watch. The man with the trilby has no face visible underneath the shadow of the hats brim. He is tall, dark and angular, and sits at a slight jaunt with a cane just visible in his right hand, it has a golden topped handle in the shape of a skull. On the table lays a complex board filled with mysterious runes with archaic numbers printed on them. To the outside viewer no visible pattern can be seen, part from the systematic plunging of a hand into a fine bag of unknown material, a dark green with a drawstring opening. The air is tense between the two. Both are waiting for the turn to take place and the other to start the war again. A deep breath is held and the man with a silver watch exhales. In his breath he utters, "Triple word score. Very impressive." A twirl of the cane and a nod of the head. Gold watch speaks. "You did not suspect that I would see the opportunity?"

"Oh, I knew you would." The man with the silver watch spoke with a light French accent and thin lips, whilst the gold watch man spoke with an accent that could not be pinned down. "I see you have not lost your accent yet. Perhaps you require more elocution lessons?" The man with the silver watch shook his head. "I like it. It makes people presume about me." Gold watch smirked.

"It's a dangerous thing for people to assume about us. Too many have fallen to a smiling Frenchman."

"The women are the easiest."

"Kinky." Silver watch placed a row of cubes on the board and leaned back.

"One hundred and eight," he said jotting it down in the tablet next to him. "You're falling behind, old man."

"By one point."

"That's all it takes." Spy clicked a lighter and lit the cigarette. Twirling it around, he breathed out a large plume that spiralled around the single gas lighter, an antique from Victorian times. The man with the gold watch frowned. "I thought I had taught you better than that." Spy cocked an eyebrow. "Smoking?"

"No," gold watch said, producing the Spy's lighter in his hands. "To always keep anything that could be used against you safe." He smiled and slid the lighter across the table to an amused Spy.

"Still playing tricks on me, eh? I would have thought you had outgrown that part of you now."

"You have no idea how old I am."

"I went to your last birthday, didn't I?"

"I believe you were in attendance, yes. Though I must admit, I did not expect you to jump out of the cake actually dressed as a stripper. How long did it take you to remove the bikini?"

"About an hour."

"I told you, you are not a size eight."

"Irrelevant. It was necessary to wear a disguise so preposterous that even you would not suspect me to wear it."

"We did always wonder about you."

"Wonder about what?"

"Well, the suits, the French accent, plus all the boys you brought home."

"I was pumping them for information."

"That's what we worried about." Though he could not see his face, Spy would have sworn later, not that it was possible to get him to divulge such information, that the corners of gold watches mouth turned up. A smile. A small click went up on gold watches side as he carefully rearranged the squares in their jury rows. "I heard that you had spent some time with a nomadic tribe. No doubt this was business and not pleasure?"

"I was hiding from some...associates of mine."

"Armed thugs?"

"Hired armed thugs."

"Hired by whom?"

"You don't know?"

"Should I?" Gold watch placed a line of squares on the already full board. Clicking them into place, his piercing gaze never left the Spy's face, who was suddenly very uncomfortable. "You know Mother hated it when you did that," Spy said. "She always thought you did not trust her."

"She was a spy. We do not trust our own."

"It must have made 'things' tense..." Gold watch shook his head.

"It made things interesting."

"As you say, dad."


	7. The Chocolate Scarlet Something

The Chocolate Scarlet Something.

My dearest Agna,

Not a day goes by where I don't think of you; where I don't dream of you. I'm forever thinking about you: In the tub, on the toilet, even when I'm reading up on Saxton's latest mildly thrilling adventures, of which I have several. You're always in my thoughts. Stay beautiful, my love. Or at least don't get any fatter.

Toodles.

The Spy.

Ah, she is the love of my life. I would die for her, I would kill for her. Well, I would kill again for her and maybe one time after that. Then I would really have to start asking myself why all these people are willing to die for this woman.

Anyway, dear friends. Here I'm at the heart of it all again. And I'm four days without a cigarette. So far I have killed eighty people and I see no sign of that slowing down. Personally I have no idea what made me think going into the Thugs 'R Us would be a good idea. But my pride demanded I go, so I went. Anyway-

"He's over here! He's got some kind of book and he's writing in it. Get him!"

"Merde." Bullets ring out across the shop as several armed men appear from thin air and begin to chase our sensitive hero. Several hit other armed men and send them down in slow motion, all cool and stuff. Whilst our hero beats a hasty advance whilst waving some kind of sausage roll shouting something about a pastry retreat? No I don't know either. Oh he's running away now. We should follow him, it's not safe here anyway. Too much blood. I feel faint...

"Come on my good man, no time to sleep now!" He lifts me to my feet and thrusts me through a door. As I pick the splinters of door out of my clothes he drags me upright and thrusts me forward. I'm crying a little bit and I'm bleeding a lot, but he doesn't really seem to care. He just throws boxes with big red x's at me, as if that will help!

My new friend seems oddly impervious to the healing powers of Mann Co's patented 'Get well soon yah coward' lunchbox. How suspicious.

Several more guys pour out of the woodwork and make the ground pretty slick. So running's a bit of a problem.

More bullets come zipping out of guns and barely miss the two as they sprint through the store. Stopping occasionally to check prices.

Suddenly a huge explosion destroys the entire building, sending the goons flying into little pieces, and our heroes delivered safely outside where a helicopter is waiting to greet them. Inside is a small dark figure smoking what appears to be the foulest most tasty cigarette ever.

My nose twitches at that familiar scent. Mann Co issued low tar, high cancer, cigarettes. My crutch, my Achilles heel if you will. Or my big glowing weak spot, if you prefer. Only one other person smokes those kinds of cigarettes. The wind from the rotor blades blows my new friends hair in a most dramatic fashion. It's a shame he's dead. And in that instant I knew who I was looking at. I stand, brush myself off, and light one of my own. I take a deep puff and as I exhale I look at her and I say: "Evening Administra-" A heavy cosh knocks the Spy out and two heavy set men lift him into the helicopter. The woman smiles evilly and says: "Good evening, Mr Napoleon. I'm to understand you have something to say to me." With that the helicopter takes off. Ferrying away Mr Napoleon into a new adventure with lots more French stuff and possibly some more romance!


	8. Run Away From The Kite Runner

Run Away From The Kite Runner

"It's a fine day for flying kites, Billy, my son who stands next to me flying his red kite, don't you know?"

"Yes'm papa," Billy agreed with a monkey grin. "A fine day." Billy was like most ten year old half black half Hispanic children and stood at eleven feet tall in his air hernados, and four foot nothing in his socks.

His father, who was actually completely black, as was his wife, stood at five feet twenty four inches tall in his socks. The sun shone off his chocolate skin and made him glow with pride, mostly at his son's ample achievements over the year.

Here's a list of them, spoken by the father like Morgan Freeman in a freestyle rap: "Yo, oi, my son got like..erm..A's on all his exams, and that makes us a proud..fams..ily…"

Have I mentioned the kite yet? No? Well look closely, because it's falling from the sky, and is vaguely..spy shaped.

Tearing through the sky at over ten thousand gloonkarks per second, the spy has his eyes locked on his most devious of foes; the antagonist to his protagonist, the final note to his opera, the singing fat lady that has signaled his doom since time immemorial, the last note of wa-wa-waaaaaaa.

He steels himself for the final showdown. Who would blink first, him, or the chaos of the universe? "Ah gravity, my most patient foe." It's go time.

SPLAT. (Spy pounds land as traversing.)

"Papa! My kite, she is a skinny man!"

"I see it son, wait here." The loving father runs over and stomps on the spy, who postulates his innocence with flailing hand motions and groans.

"Stop-Ow. Stop, you silly ba-Ouch! Can't you see I'm on a mission? OW! Stop stomping-AIEEEEEE!"

"PEOPLE'S ELBOW," the loving father cries with tears running down his face in diamond rain. He looks to his son, who nods solemnly.

"Do it papa, do it for her."

"Yes son, for her."

"What the heck are you people talking about?"

"Quiet you, feel the wrath of oppression!" It was a drop that Dwayne-The Rock-Johnson would have been proud of; It was visceral, yet fair. Elbow connected with sternum, pain connected with reality, and spy connected with a memory that had been blocked for years. Through tear soaked, and snot, don't forget the snot, eyes he could see it all so clearly.

PART DUEX:

A single column of smoke, a dusky voice that commands obedience…or else, a stare that can pierce the heart of stars and turn them black, and a rather fetching purple number with curves in all the wrong places, she was the administrator, and he was her lover…

Sort of. It was complicated. Love is.

Not as complicated as what happens next, but close.

See you next time.


End file.
